After SF, Uber’s ride-splitting service UberPool comes to Paris

Uber’s ride-splitting service UberPool is arriving in Paris, the company announced today at press conference held at its Paris office. The service, which launched in San Francisco last month, will allow passengers to reduce the price of their Uber trip by up to 50% in exchange for allowing drivers to pick up other passengers who are more or less on the way – Airport trips from the center of Paris to Charles de Gaulle could cost as little as 18€, the company says, for the service that is set to launch Nov. 14th at 3:00PM.

Uber launched its P2P service UberPop earlier this year in France, and already includes 160,000 riders, out of a total of 500,000 riders across the service. In total, Uber is available in 6 cities across France – Paris, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Bordeaux, and Toulouse – they’ve also run pop-up experiments (cars and planes) at the Cannes Film Festival, as Paris & France as a whole remains among the top international markets for Uber, according to Paris director Thibaud Simphal.

Uber has had a few blow-backs in the French market, including attacks from Taxi drivers on the freeway as well as recent fine for advertising UberPop (which the company is currently contesting). Still, with 500,000 riders in a city of 10 Million+, Uber’s reach has grown large enough that they can test beta-services like UberPool in Paris only one month after releasing it in their hometown of San Francisco/Bay Area.

Other services that Uber has tried or is considering include a bicycle messenger service, pop-up ice cream trucks and other novelty cars (like food trucks), but also on-demand moving fans (UberVan drivers have noted a large number of people using the service as a moving service – I’ve done it 3 times, and it’s wonderful and affordable).